


Fun and Games

by Forestfire34720



Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU
Genre: Adoption, And Joker should’ve died a long time ago, Bombing, Character Death, Dark, Gen, Gothamites are tough people, Gray Morality, Grief, Insanity, Jason Todd is Red Hood, Joker toxin, Morally Ambiguous Character, Revenge, Uncontrollable Laughing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-22
Updated: 2020-06-22
Packaged: 2021-03-04 02:29:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,069
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24856117
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Forestfire34720/pseuds/Forestfire34720
Summary: “It’s sick,Adam thinks, watching wide-eyed as Joker howls with joy and the poor man howls with agony,how he enjoys it so much. How helaughsat that. He doesn’t care who he hurts; it’s all just a game to him.”Bats don’t kill. But not everyone holds to the same standards. And one Gothamite is done watching Joker run wild.
Comments: 3
Kudos: 63





	Fun and Games

**Author's Note:**

> Warning: Detailed description of a Joker attack via laughing gas. This story has some dark stuff in it.

_"It's all fun and games until someone gets hurt. And then it's hilarious."_

_— Olivia Cunning_

* * *

He's six years old and watching his parents choke on their own laughter.

It all happens so fast. One moment his parents have just stepped from the car, having arrived home from a trip to the park, and coming around to help Adam, sitting in the back. Then they pause, hand-in-hand, and their expressions change. The air outside turns green. In the space of an instant, their faces melt from happy into something Adam only recognizes later as horrified realization.

Then they're chuckling, again and again, until suddenly they're in hysterics, gasping and chortling and choking.

Adam screams. They stagger and fall, arms wrapped around their stomachs, chests heaving. His mom sinks to the ground, doubled over. His dad collapses against the car, and Adam can see the painful, terrified grin stretching across his face. He pounds on the car window, as if he could break it through the sheer force of his desperation. A moment later his fingers start scrabbling for the handle, fumbling what only a minute ago would be an easy task. Finally, the door swings open.

Immediately, the cackling choir grows louder. It rises all around him, a ghastly chorus of terror. His parents' horrified guffaws echo in his ears and Adam's screaming and pulling at their arms and they keep laughing laughing laughing only it's so strangled and broken and terrified that it's little more than wretched sobbing. His dad's wide eyes find his and he tries to push Adam away, back into the car but Adam resists and then his dad can't do anything except laugh and laugh.

There's a clatter by his foot and Adam looks down and a canister hisses and a green mist reaches up toward him and Adam is panicking and his breath is coming quick and short and his parents are still howling with mirth only there's nothing funny in this there's nothing funny _at all_ —

— and something bubbles up in his own throat. It starts as a little chuckle but another comes and another and another, and then he's howling just like his parents, laughter pouring out. It spills from his mouth and he can't breathe past them but he only laughs harder and he can't stop _he can't stop —_

A dark shadow falls over him. Adam thrashes and shudders and shakes, those horrible noises ripping themselves from his throat. Large hands grip his shoulders firmly, and someone's yelling above him. Distantly, he feels something pricking his arm, and then slowly, he subsides, still gasping for breath, still feeling the haunting echoes of his uncontrollable cackles.

"It'll be okay," someone rumbles above him.

Adam catches a glimpse of a bat splashed across a broad chest, and then he blacks out.

* * *

He's seven and staring at his new school, all the way on the other side of the city.

The Myers, his new foster parents, stand behind him. They're nice people, warm and welcoming and sympathetic, but they're not his parents. Martin reads to him at night, but he can't do the funny voices like his dad. Colette hums to him before he sleeps, but she can't sing lullabies like his mom.

They stay with him when he can't fall asleep and hug him when he wakes up screaming and comfort him when he can barely breathe. When his birthday arrived, barely a month after the incident, they did their best to help when all he could do was curl up in a little ball in the corner of his new room. They're great parents, but they're not _his_ parents.

"It's a good school," Martin tells him reassuringly.

"I know you'll love it," Colette soothes with a smile.

"Okay," Adam says quietly.

He hitches his backpack higher up on his shoulders and trudges through the gate. The paved area out front is swarming with kids, greeting each other after a summer apart. Adam hunches his shoulders and tries to ignore the panic creeping up his throat. It works, for the moment.

But as the day progresses, it starts getting harder to breathe. This is the first time he's been around so many people since the incident and whenever someone speaks it's hard not to hear a cackling just beneath their voice. He jumps and flinches whenever someone tries to talk to him, the echoes of his parents howling in his ears.

Come lunchtime, Adam's hidden himself away in a bathroom, shaking and desperately trying and failing to block out that haunting laughter. He hugs himself tighter, squeezes his eyes shut, curls himself into as small a ball as he can manage. His heart pounds wildly and he can feel that awful laugh rising in his throat and it's getting hard to breathe and —

"Are you okay?"

Adam yelps, his eyes flying open. There's a kid standing in front of him, his eyes wide and concerned. He instinctively recoils, only he's already pressed himself as far as he can into the bathroom wall and can't go any farther. He just stares up at the kid, still half-lost in his memory. He wants to answer the question but if he opens his mouth, he's afraid he might start laughing and never be able to stop.

The kid shuffles his feet awkwardly when the silence stretches on. "Um, I just thought I'd ask. If you were okay. Cuz you, uh, don't look very okay. Kinda look — uh, never mind. Sorry. I can go? Should I go? I think I, um. I'll go. Sorry."

The kid turns to leave. Panic surges anew — _don't leave me alone!_ — and then Adam reaches out without thinking and snags the kid's sleeve, pulling him back toward him. An instant later, Adam lets go, mortified, but the kid just blinks.

"Oh. Okay," he says. "I can stay too."

The kid plops down beside him, crossing his legs. He tips his head curiously at Adam and asks, "I'm Sebastian. Who're you?"

Adam clears his throat and, after several seconds, manages to croak out, "Adam."

The kid nods. Adam squints at him and realizes he's in his class. In fact, he'd sat only a couple seats away. But he doesn't have any idea what to say to him, and he doesn't feel much like talking right now.

"Mom always makes me talk about stuff when I don't feel so good," Sebastian says after a few moments of awkward silence. "Uh, do you want to? You know, talk about it?"

Adam shakes his head.

"Oh. Okay. Uh... I can talk?" he offers instead.

Adam shrugs agreeably.

"Okay, uh... I found out yesterday that Christy doesn't like potato chips? My dog, I mean. Christy's my dog. And that's so silly? I mean, everyone likes chips, right? But Christy didn't eat them when I gave her some which is really weird because she eats everything else I give her..."

As Sebastian rambles on, first about his dog, then his favorite foods, and then whatever else seems to come to mind, Adam feels himself calming down. Slowly, he uncurls himself and sits there, listening this kid he's just met talk about anything and everything.

When Sebastian finally seems to run out of things to say, he rubs his neck, then looks at Adam again. "Better?"

Adam nods and mumbles, "Thanks."

Sebastian bobs his head. "Good, good."

They sit there for a while in silence, and this time Adam can't hear any ghostly chuckles, only the faint creaking of the pipes around them.

"Can we be friends?" Sebastian abruptly blurts out a few minutes later, then immediately looks sheepish. "I mean, we don't have to be. I just — I like you. And uh, you're new and I don't really have any friends and I think it'd pretty cool to get to know you and, um. Yeah."

Adam smiles shyly. "Okay."

A grin spreads over Sebastian's face, and Adam thinks that he's okay now.

"Friends, then," Sebastian declares, and Adam smiles too.

Then his new friend laughs loudly, delighted, and suddenly Adam can't breathe again. Only this time, instead of panic, grief is roaring through him. Before he knows it, he's openly crying.

"Oh man, I'm sorry!" Sebastian cries, eyes wide and startled and guilty. "Why are you crying? What'd I do? Sorry sorry sorry I don't know what to do what do I do? Please don't cry I'm sorry for whatever I did — "

Adam reaches out blindly and pulls the other boy into a hug, desperate for something, anything. His parents' absence yawns inside him, but touch helps numb the emptiness.

"Uh," Sebastian says, obviously panicking again. "It's okay?"

Sebastian pats his back awkwardly and Adam sobs into his shirt and nothing is okay but it feels good when Sebastian hesitantly wraps his own arms around him and holds him while he falls apart and that's all that matters right now.

* * *

He's fourteen and can't pull his eyes away from the TV.

He'd been flipping through channels, looking for something good to watch, and then he'd hit a news channel and suddenly Joker had been _there_ , the screen playing out in live-time, chortling as he _played_ with yet another victim. The madman waves jauntily at the camera, flashing a terrifying grin, and the camera shakes. Whoever's holding it swears under their breath, but they must have nerves of steel because they keep streaming the scene.

"Enjoying the show, Gotham?" Joker shouts gleefully. "Well, the Bat's taking his time today, so this episode still has a while to go. So don't worry," he adds to his victim, who sobs mindlessly, "we aren't done having fun yet!"

 _It's sick_ , Adam thinks, watching wide-eyed as Joker howls with joy and the poor man howls with agony, _how he enjoys it so much. How he laughs at that. He doesn't care who he hurts; it's all just a game to him._

"Hey, A, what're you watching — oh." Sebastian, coming in from the other room, notices what's playing on TV and falters. Then, without hesitation, he strides over and turns it off.

Adam startles, his gaze flicking up to Sebastian. "Bass..."

"No, no watching that stuff," his best friend reminds him. "You know how you get. We don't need to see what Joker does. We just need to stay out of his way."

Adam curls in on himself, still hearing the man's screams.. He's known life without his parents longer than he'd known life with them now. He barely even remembers their faces now; the only persistent memory he has of them is their final moments — _no, don't think about that._

"Sorry," Adam mumbles. "Didn't mean to. Thanks for turning it off."

"No problemo." Sebastian nods. "Eventually they'll catch Joker and throw him back in Arkham where he belongs. And, A, it'll be okay."

"No it won't, Bass," Adam says. "So many people will still be dead — and he breaks out so often — "

"I know," Sebastian says. "But Batman and Robin will stop him, right? They always stop him in the end. Joker doesn't stand a chance. I mean, Batman saved your life back then."

Adam glares at the ground and bitterly mutters, "But what about in the meantime? How many people die because Batman can't stop him in time?" His clenches his hands into fists, knuckles turning white. "Just like he couldn't save Mom and Dad."

* * *

He's twenty-two and standing into the hospital, filled with the victims of Joker's latest attack.

"Bass," Adam says softly, seeing him hunched over in a plastic chair, hands clasped in front of him.

Sebastian barely reacts. It's his girlfriend, three years running now and sitting at his side, who looks up and nods at him. Lydia's eyes are clouded with grief, and his heart clenches. They're both seated across from a one-sided window, but neither are looking in.

Adam sits down on his best friend's other side and gives him a side hug. Sebastian's only response is to lean into his touch. Sandwiched between his girlfriend and best friend, Sebastian can only hunch further into himself, gaze distant.

"I'm sorry," he whispers, even knowing how little comfort his words would be. "I'm so sorry."

 _How is he?_ he mouths to Lydia, over Sebastian's bowed head.

 _Not good_ , she replies.

Adam's eyes flicker to a one-sided window, where Sebastian's mom is lying on a bed, leather restraints on her arms and legs. She's cackling loudly, the sound floating through the air. The only time she quiets is when she has to physically stop and inhale. Sebastian flinches every time the laughter rises again.

 _And her?_ he silently asks Lydia, even though a single glance tells him everything he needs to know.

She shakes her head.

Adam holds his friend tighter. Sebastian had lost his dad to Black Mask only a year ago, gunned down in the streets. At the time, it'd been horrifying and heart-wrenching; according to the coroner, he hadn't died right away, instead being left to bleed out on the sidewalk. And now for such a thing to happen to his mom... Adam recalls back to that terrifying loss of control, the feeling of choking on his own sobbing chortles, the inability to _just stop laughing_ , and he privately thinks that maybe Sebastian's dad got the better end of the deal.

"She won't stop," Sebastian mumbles. "She — it doesn't matter what Lydia or I try, she doesn't stop. She doesn't..."

"At least she's alive," Adam offers in an weak attempt at consolation, but his words fall flat and hollow even to him. "She got rescued, so that's... something."

"Rescued?" Lydia echoes, a note of incredulity in her voice. She gestures at Sebastian's mom, thrashing against her restraints, still letting out that eerie, hoarse cackle. "Does she look rescued to you?"

And Adam looks and understands. He still has nightmares of his birth parents' death; they're little more than foggy memories now, yet all the more terrifying for it because brain tries to fill in what it's forgotten. Joker may not be directly hurting him now, but his actions still haunt him years later.

"No," Adam says quietly. "It doesn't."

Adam hadn't been rescued from Joker sixteen years ago. No one is ever _rescued_ from Joker.

Adam's just one of the poor souls that survived their run-in with him.

* * *

He's twenty-seven and at the joint funerals of Sebastian's wife and newborn daughter.

Beside him, Sebastian has curled into himself. Silent tears track down his cheeks, and his gaze is fixed on the ground. He doesn't seem able to bring himself to so much as glance toward the front of the room, where the remnants of his family rest.

It's hard for Adam, too, to see the cruel reminders of what's been stolen from them. He can only glance at the closed caskets for a few seconds before his heart clenches so painfully that he has to turn his head away. That doesn't stop the agonizing awareness that the coffins are practically empty.

Lydia and their daughter had been caught in the blast zone of one of Joker's bombs. Grief mingles with rage inside Adam; grief for losing even more people, rage against Joker for taking them all away. It's even worse than before, even without considering that his newborn surrogate niece had been killed this time. At least in previous attacks, there'd been something left for them to mourn.

This time, the only thing they could bury was the small, bloody foot of the baby.

When it's his turn, Adam goes up and gives a quiet eulogy to his good-as sister-in-law. Sebastian manages to deliver a few words before choking up and retreating back to his seat. He withdraws further into himself and doesn't speak again.

Before Adam knows it, the funeral is over, and everybody is relocating to their cars to start the funeral procession. Adam walks with his friend, his arm never leaving the other's shoulder, when Sebastian suddenly stops in his tracks.

"They're gone," Sebastian whispers, and then he collapses to his knees. His voice is broken like jagged glass, and then it rises in a wail. "They're gone. They're gone, they're gone, _they're gone —_ "

Around them, the rest of the attendees of the funeral respectfully avert their eyes. They draw back to give the two friends space, waiting with sympathetic patience as Sebastian's tears finally start coming in full. Adam kneels down beside his friend and rests a hand on his arm.

"They're gone," Sebastian sobs.

"I'm sorry," he says.

And this time it's Adam's turn to wrap his arms around his friend. Sebastian howls with the force of his grief and nothing is okay but Sebastian clings to him and Adam holds him while he falls apart and that's all that matters right now.

Adam clutches his best friend close, his own face wet with tears, his own heart hollow with pain, and thinks, _Never again._

* * *

He's twenty-seven and loading bullets into a gun, one by one.

Sebastian is standing across from him. He looks gaunt and hollow, only a week after burying his family. Grief still glitters sharply in his eyes, but now an anguished desperation is in there too.

"I won't let him kill another person, Bass," Adam says, looking at him with steely determination. "We've lost so many people we love to him. I can't... I won't let him hurt anyone else."

"If you go after him, he'll kill you too!" Sebastian steps toward him and grabs his hand, keeping from loading the next bullet.

"And if I don't, Joker might kill you next." Adam gently pulls away from his friend's grasp. He finishes loading the gun, checks that the safety is on, and tucks it away. "I'm going to do whatever it takes to keep that from ever happening."

"Please don't," Sebastian begs, and his face crumples. "Please. You'll die, A. Please. Don't get yourself killed. You're the only one I have left. I can't lose you too."

"You won't lose me, Bass," Adam assures him, the promise ringing hollow in his ears. "You won't. It'll be okay."

"No, it won't," Sebastian says.

And even though Adam doesn't have a response to that, he still refuses to waver in his conviction. Instead he hugs Sebastian and thinks of Batman after his most recent victory, Joker's unconscious form tossed over his shoulder, Nightwing and Red Robin and Robin at his side, Red Hood looming in the background, and wonders with bitter grief just how many people would still be alive today if only one of them had killed that madman years ago. Whether his birth parents, whether Lydia, whether Sebastian's mom and daughter would have died or lived long and happy lives. And how many people will be saved in the future, if Joker is ended right this instant.

He won't have to wonder much longer, Adam thinks to himself; if he kills Joker, then he'll never have to find out who he might've killed. And if he doesn't... well, these sorts of things don't matter to a dead man.

* * *

He's twenty-eight and creeping through a derelict factory.

Adam's breath comes short and quick. He muffles it as best he can, but it still sounds like dull claps of thunder in the oppressive silence. The gun is warm and heavy, the metal pressing against his palms. His heart thumps wildly in his chest, and it takes considerable will of effort to stay relatively calm.

He steps cautiously through a door, the gun held in front of him. Then he exhales quietly and lowers his weapon again. Joker's men are strewn around the room, most unconscious, a few dead. Fresh blood, still wet and sticky, is smeared on the ground by the dead. Adam's boot knocks against something on the ground, and when he crouches for a closer look, he sees a rubber bullet.

It's just like in previous rooms. He'd gotten wind that Joker had set up in this factory and immediately grabbed his gun and headed over, despite Sebastian's protests. Apparently someone else arrived first, though, because nearly everybody he's come across has already been defeated.

Adam stands and moves on, carefully avoiding looking at the few dead men. Set on the opposite wall are heavy, steel double doors, and as Adam approaches, he can hear shouting, gunfire, and laughter.

His blood boils at the familiar, cruel sound. He shoves open the doors and finds himself standing on a catwalk, overlooking a large room. More of Joker's men are scattered about, most of them unconscious. In the middle is a broad-shouldered, red-helmeted shape, twin guns in his hands. The remaining thugs charge toward Red Hood as he fights his way to a raised platform on the far side of the room, where Joker stands, watching the fight amusedly.

For several seconds, all Adam can do is stare. Joker's laugh knocks him back to his senses. He searches for a staircase and finds one a few feet away. He scrambles down it and has just reached the bottom by the time Red Hood finally takes down the last of his enemies. The large vigilante turns his attention to Joker. Neither seem to have noticed Adam at all.

"You don't have any men left," he growls. "You're mine now."

Joker smirks. "Aw, I knew you cared, little birdie."

"Shut up!" Red Hood roars, and his fist crashes against Joker's face. The force of it swivels Joker around and sends him to his knees. It leaves him half in shadow, his back to the vigilante.

Adam's grip on his weapon tightens as he looks at the madman. For the first time, Joker is vulnerable. Adam could kill him right here and now. But Red Hood is here too, and Adam hesitates, not wanting to get between the infamous vigilante and his target.

"It's over, Joker," Red Hood snarls and levels a gun at Joker. "You're dead."

Joker just laughs, loud and careless, and too late, Adam realizes Joker is holding something in his hands.

Joker twists to face Red Hood and swings the crowbar. It smashes directly into Red Hood's face, and unprepared for the sudden attack, the vigilante staggers backward. Joker immediately knocks his legs out from under him with a backhand, then swings it back upward. It cracks against the other's chin, and Red Hood hits the ground hard.

And then Red Hood is groaning, flat on his back, and Joker is holding a gun in his other hand and cackling and cocking the hammer back and there's no time for hesitation anymore —

Adam lifts his gun, aims, and fires.

The bullet hits Joker dead-center, right in the chest.

For a moment, time seems suspended. It's just the three of them, Adam, Red Hood, and Joker. The three of them and one bullet. Then Joker turns to face him, his eyes uncharacteristically wide in shock.

He sways unsteadily. Blood seeps out from the fabric of his suit, turning the purple a dark red. The crowbar slips from his fingers and clatters on the floor.

"That's not funny," Joker says, and he falls to the ground. "That's not funny at all."

Adam blinks, the gunshot still ringing in his ears. Numbly, he lowers the gun, watching the blood spill out of Joker with a detached sort of shock. Red Hood rises to his feet, glancing between Adam and Joker

"You killed him. You killed Joker," Red Hood says at last, his voice a low rumble. He stares at Adam, face hidden behind his inscrutable helmet. "Who are you?"

Adam can't pull his eyes away from Joker. "Someone who'd had enough."

The vigilante doesn't say anything for a long moment.

Then, slowly, Red Hood nods, almost as if in respect. He pulls something out from his jacket and holds it out. When Adam doesn't move, still staring stunned at the corpse he's created, he presses it into his free hand and folds his fingers around it.

"If you ever need help," Red Hood promises, "I'll be there. Count on it."

Then he vanishes and the only things left are Adam, Joker's body, and the silence of the aftermath.

* * *

He's twenty-eight and he's finally ended the game.

He's twenty-eight and he's finally killed Joker.

He's twenty-eight and has gunpowder on his sleeves and blood pooling under his boots and a gun barrel smoking in his grasp and a life extinguished at his hands and Adam —

Adam doesn't feel an ounce of regret.

**Author's Note:**

> It's a common joke that Gothamites are made of tough stuff and hardly fazed by chaos and death and whatnot. So it occured to me that if Gothamites are really like that, then if someone like Joker was running around killing a bunch of people, they're hardly likely to just sit back and let the Bats always take care of him. Especially when all they do is throw him back into Arkham, where Joker continually breaks out and then kills more people.
> 
> Thoughts? Questions? Suggestions?


End file.
